


Still Here

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Piano Man - Billy Joel (Song)
Genre: Closeted Character, M/M, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1827517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paul doesn't think he'll ever really get out of Smalltown America, but Davy helps him dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Joanne_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joanne_c/gifts).



The bar is full on Saturday night as usual. Paul watches the young, blonde waitress out of the corner of his eye, trying to figure out what role she’s taken on this week. She tends to switch it up – sometimes she’s Hillary, sometimes she’s Sarah. If she has any political convictions of her own, no one knows even remotely what they are. 

He’d forgotten his pad of paper again at home, so he picks up a paper napkin and scratches out her profile with the black, ball-point pen, thankfully still sticking out of his jacket pocket from the past week. It comes in handy when clients call out of the blue, and it comes in handy when he’s bored at the local bar and wants to write or doodle. 

Albeit, he had been drinking more than writing lately. Work sucks out most of his creative energy. Writing takes commitment and inspiration and that’s hard to come by when he is so exhausted from dealing with idiot clients that his head is mostly empty and the choices that he does have the energy for come down to: drink, sleep or redneck tv.

His mother has been nagging him to meet a nice girl and get married. She wants grandchildren or something. As though his sister hadn’t already produced a houseful of them. Paul smirks. As much as he loves his nieces and nephews, he can’t imagine having to take on that sort of responsibility. Besides, the way he is, it’s unlikely to come up anyway, His mother thinks that his job is the problem – which it is – but that’s not the only reason. 

“Don’t tell me you haven’t finished that Great American Novel yet.”

Paul freezes and takes in a breath. He’s a little afraid to look up, because sometimes he hears that voice in his dreams and then he looks up only to awaken and find his apartment dead silent and his bed empty. Finally, he looks up. 

Davy hasn’t changed. The same cocky smile, the same shoulders – one just slightly higher than the other – the same thick brown hair, shorn criminally short by the military establishment. “No, I guess I haven’t,” he says, a little unsteadily, because part of him is still afraid this is a dream. He stands, slowly and reaches out with just as much uncertainty. Davy has to practically grab him into a hug.

They keep it short, but both are grinning by the time they pull back. “Get you a drink?” Paul suggests. He doesn’t want to go over to the bar where it’s crowded, so he waves the waitress over and orders them drinks. Then sits down, just a little too close to Davy to be completely innocent. But they don’t do much more than that in public. Just because DADT had gone out the window, doesn’t mean their small town had a sudden epiphany. And in a place where half the people know who you are and a fourth know where you live…it’s best to not make a scene, or cause one either. 

“I didn’t expect you back from your tour just yet,” Paul starts. He has a tendency to ramble a bit when he’s nervous-excited. 

“Yea, it’s a nice change of things. I’m not stationed here though, just on leave. I’ll have to leave again soon. I’m sorry.”

He always apologizes and Paul is torn between guilt and hurt. He wants Davy to stay, just once. But he hates the apologizing, hates that it’s obvious how unfair he’s being. “Don’t. It’s fine.” Their drinks come and Paul hides behind his glass. 

“I missed our class reunion. How was it?” Davy asks a couple of glasses later, when they’ve exchanged initial accounts of how they’ve been over the past few months. 

“Boring. You didn’t miss much. Most people are still here; most are married.”

Davy nods, the subtle sparkle in his eyes flaring up again. It seems to get dimmer with every tour, but Paul pretends that he doesn’t notice, because it’s less painful that way. “But not you.”

“Well, I’m still here.”

“Still writing that novel?”

“Just barely.” It’s a bitter admission, but if he’d tell anyone the truth it would be Davy. “You planning to come back and go to college?” 

“Maybe next year when I’ve saved a little more money.”

It’s Paul’s turn to nod. It’s an old story, an old excuse. It had been ten years since their high school graduation. Then Davy had wanted to “travel the world and save up some money.” It was supposed to be temporary. Now, Paul thinks, he just doesn’t know where he’d fit in without a uniform. 

The piano man starts up a tune, an old sweet thing, like a childhood memory. “Remember this from prom?” Paul asks. 

Davy nods. “I wanted to go with you,” he confides, keeping his voice low. But he’d ended up going with Becky Miler. A handsome, guitar-playing guy like Davy was a popular date. Paul had had a steady girlfriend then and he’d gone with her, but they broke up after Paul went to college. That first summer, Paul had gone to New York for an internship and got himself a proper boyfriend, but only for a couple of months. After, he realized that the guy had looked a lot like Davy, only blond. Then he’d come back and finished college and started on his career. He and Davy got together for the first time in a bar similar to this one but in another nearby town. The only gay bar for miles. Davy had already been in the navy for two-three years by then. 

“Everyone wanted to go with you,” Paul says back, pouring himself another drink from their nearly-empty pitcher. “We could have been something else, you know. I think about that sometimes.” 

“We still might.” Davy shrugs and finishes off his drink. 

They might, but it’s unlikely. Davy just happens to be an optimist. They’ll finish off their drinks and then Davy will go back to Paul’s apartment and they’ll reunite for real, but then he’ll be at his old man’s house by dawn and they will meet each other every day but never anything too conspicuous. Even if people know, in the back of their heads, it’s easier if no one knows for certain. Then, Davy will leave for his next post and Paul will go back to his clients and his novel, which he probably will never finish. 

But Paul figures that it’s no use to dwell on any of that just now.


End file.
